The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou

[budgie]

{splutter}

If you didn't see more than '50s cliche housewife' (whatever that is) you need to retune your senses. What was masterful in Far From Heaven was the way the performances echoed fifties performance styles, and Julianne Moore (and Quaid, who I thought was brilliant) captured this so subtly it was intense. She constantly reminded me of Marilyn Monroe (not the housewife type at all) without at all slipping into camp, a performance that was totally in tune with the whole movie. To play repression is not a case of simply looking stereotypical or 'doing nothing', and the contrast with The Hours shows how well she can differentiate two apparently (to the deadened eye of people like Gold Trumpet) done roles. I don't see how you can even begin to compare Pleasantville or The Truman Show to Far From Heaven, the play off was wholly different and so, as JB points out, were the characters.

Blah, Nicole Kidman can't hold a candle to JM, and I'm sick to think she's gonna taint the new Anderson.

[Gold Trumpet]

How not? Here and there, within little places all over tv, whenever it is suggested that a time and feeling go back to the more wholesome world of America pre 1970s or whatever, there is always shown a house wife who plays to these examples. I always felt it was something that was present and if someone was to play that image, they would do it a certain way. A kind of acting that is based off over exaggerated facial movements to suggest the happy and nice. Though I give Julianne Moore a little credit for adding what seems to be realism, her acting for the movie exists only in the recreating of these facial movements. From smiling like all is well and everything is dandy to showing strict discipline placed upon a kid who does wrong and then showing devastation but also being confined to a world that asks her to keep some level of emotion up. I honestly think she was just running the gauntlet of all these little stereotypes to how the household wife was exaggerated to be like. Nothing she can do, because it is all the role offered her. But the acting in Pulp Fiction was the same way, in actors playing up to the roles of what their genre said to them that was transformed into a cliche of ways. Pulp Fiction does a lot better though in bringing a realism to it that is apparent now, Far From Heaven is just a Sirk film made now.

~rougerum

[©brad]

Your Julianne Moore comments stem from over-analyzation and bad taste. As for Far from Heaven being a Sirk film made now, pfft. Far From Heaven does address issues relevant today, and it does so bodly, unlike the Sirk movies that would only vaguely hint at such taboos. I'm not sure I'm understanding the Pulp Fiction comparison.

[Gold Trumpet]

Budgie,
you offered the words that the performances brought an echo to fifty performance styles. In that sense, how do you think this is achieved? Far From Heaven is a direct imitation of the style and story of a filmmaker from the 1950s who made melodramas of banal material and an over stlyization that made people second guess the material on how honest it really was about what it was showing, if it did just show it as bad romance fiction or the stylization put it into a context that was showing the super ficiality of the genre and the times. Though Far From Heaven deals with issues common place only now instead of the previous day, it is still very much Sirk in conforming to a 1950s movies of his, with the only difference being that the issues are updated. The thing is, Far From Heaven is a movie based off other movies and a style that is playing parody straight. Everyone in the movie is following these rules, besides Dennis Quaid, who has some emotional scenes that seem to go outside of it. If you were reminded of Marilyn Monroe, then thats fine. I wasn't at all because even when Marilyn tried to play a role straight and serious, she had a voice and way with her that suggested she was as confused as any blonde is portrayed to be now (note: I am a complete natural blonde myself). I just can't see how this is not camp when it is basically an imitation of movies that really were in many respects.

and cbr, go fetch your answer in that paragraph.

~rougerum

[Jeremy Blackman]

(note: I am a complete natural blonde myself)

Your argument is no longer credible.

[budgie]

(note: I am a complete natural blonde myself)

Your argument is no longer credible.

{slap, slap}

But on that point, JB's 'joke' works because you are (I believe) a blond man, not a blonde woman. Actually, I'm not sure... do you encounter prejudice for it, GT? Just thinking how blond actors might be thought of as bimboys. But anyway, it isn't at all to the same degree I'm certain.


GT,
First off I will say that I find it very difficult to pin down how Far From Heaven works its magic (on me). I found it extremely intelligent and the interplay between two periods (now and the fifties) extremely original in that it did not feel to me like a period film. Somehow too it managed to make issues and actions that we have come to take for granted as no longer that affecting or relevant seem completely shocking and serious. For instance, when Quaid hits Julianne, an action that has been almost naturalised in contemporary media, it really took me aback. It doesn't 'update' the issues, it just makes you look again at them and I think you realise, with some horror, that the issues are still the same.

I have to say I don't quite understand what you mean about Sirk's movies making people "second guess the material on how honest it really was about what it was showing", but presuming that you are talking about the audiences in the fifties (as opposed to later, when Sirk got re-evaluated for a male-oriented audience) I think you are misjudging how people related to the stories as 'honest' and the style as emphasis of the melodrama. In the context of fifties design and Hollywood movies of the period style wouldn't have been that apparent. For the female audiences of Sirk's films, the stories would not have been 'banal, bad romance', and the design would not have been exotic (seen within the familiar Hollywood ideal) they would have been fantasised and moving imitations of their lives (duh). That's why the critics dismissed the films in the fifties as 'just' soap and melodrama. You seem to be seeing them from the point of view of later critics who decided that if they separated out the style from the story ('good' from 'bad'/'entertainment' from 'art') they could celebrate Sirk as an auteur. But that's just what they wanted to see.

Where I think FFH is so brilliant is that it does appear to imitate Sirk, but yet totally avoids being camp and makes the so called 'banal, bad romance' shocking, whereas in my experience Sirk causes a lot of giggling when seen today. I think the performances, as I said, contribute to that. I would not dismiss the possibility that this is to do with recognising the actors, knowing they are of the present, and yet being forced to accept them in this world that we can only see styled as 'the fifties'. So you almost become aware of Julianne Moore, the actor, caught in this other time, where because her performance, like the style of the film, reminds you of Sirk's actors', the two periods just melt together. I don't know that I can be absolutely precise about how the acting reminds me of fifties acting without seeing the movie again and directly comparing it with a Sirk, but Quaid's performance, for instance, reminded me of the manly classic guy shot through with the angsty style (Dean, Clift, Brando) that was also current. Kirk Douglas in Written On The Wind.

What I found was that, apart from when Moore goes to see Haysbert in his home and he tells her he's leaving, I wasn't moved in a conventional sense of feeling weepy, but that the film's intelligence moved me (to shock). I think it somehow made you see familiar things in a different way. I haven't talked to my gay male friends yet, but I would guess that they were emotionally moved. I think the film may be showing a gay man's way of seeing, and the way Quaid's gay relationship (though it's also a white man's relationship) becomes the most successful and 'normal' at the end is really something.

Sorry, that's really rambling, I know, and I don't know whether I answered your questions, but as I said, I think it's an incredibly complex movie that I will need to see another few times to get my head around.

[cine]

Its most definitely a masterful piece of work by Haynes, as he should've been awarded the Best Original Writing Oscar for it. If anybody sees the movie, loves it, but has not even heard of Sirk, then it thankfully opens up a whole new door for filmgoers who haven't seen those classics.. and I bet Haynes would be happy if he accomplished that. I know he has.

[chainsmoking insomniac]

Hey, if you all wanna see a chilling portrait of a repressed woman, see "Safe" by Todd Haynes. Julianne Moore fucking blows me out of the water.

[Gold Trumpet]

Budgie,
From what I read on your feelings of affection toward the movie, I think you are addressing what I liked the most about the movie, the fact it deals with subjects that are not observed with our own thinking, which is sympathetic towards issues like interracial relations and gays, which still are not fully accepted, but it looks to them as they would have been looked at through the more strict view point in the 1950s. I think we as the viewers, when seeing a drama stylized in such a Hollywood way, start to identify with the story through what we know and find the views even more shocking as we witness them through a mind set not our own. On that level of usage of another man's style of filmmaking, the movie has power. But as this dicussion moved from one on Julianne Moore to the general standing of the movie, there are drawbacks to this.

In the movie taking a style completely and making it like it was one of that style made now, it does succeed in bringing new ideas into a new perspective, but as a work, the lack of indepedence of the person doing this really must be noted. This movie really reminds me of The Talented Mr. Ripley the most, where I saw a movie that filmmaking and story wise, acted really as imitation of another filmmaker, Alfred Hitchcock, with the exception, like this movie, it brought forth themes of today not present really in movies then. I liked The Talented Mr. Ripley only to a point. I've admired the craftmanship of Hitchock films and though Ripley worked well as a Hitchcock film effectively for today, but it wasn't by Hitchcock, so standing as a film by another man, I really couldn't appreciate the movie to any great degree. I can't see much creativity in seeing how well one can recreate another man's movie to a subject very similiar to all his rest. It became a 3 star movie for me. And thing is, that movie still really deals with just a genre movie while Far From Heaven has more importance in dealings with ideas that are more expressive for their own importance to our society. With that in mind, I admire Far From Heaven more. Then take into account the feeling for the film, that Roger Ebert described in another Julianne Moore movie, The End of the Affair, to have dragged way too long at the end. That's what I remember from his show review, I've never seen the movie. I though Far From Heaven dragged beyond comfort, especially with the relationship between Moore and the gardener finally ending. I respected the movie for what it was trying to aim for and saw it as more important than Talented Mr Ripley, but unlike Ripley, I was restless as the movie went on and themes started to reappear when they were already understood. Just the same themes and such. My overall thoughts on the film was admiration but not enough for recommendation since the film, in its ground work, didn't have much to really become.

And on the blonde prejudice, I have gotten some. Nothing bad though, but my prejudice came from everyone's first impression of me for just being a kucklehead. In one of my college courses, I am known as the kid who argues with the professor to just annoy her, fitting the goof off role. Today, for the first time, I was able to speak at length about a subject I knew more about than the professor and everyone looked at me and said, "Wow, you're actually kind of smart."

~rougerum

[budgie]

GT~

It seems to me that again, as with Van Sant, our divergence comes from differing attitudes towards films as somehow being untouchable and original works of art. I don't have any problem with filmmakers upfronting film as being like any other life experience and using a fictional text as a basis for a new movie. I actually think it raises the status of film/art by not treating it as something separate from other life experiences, especially when it results in an excellent and new perspective on those experiences. This is part of Haynes' agenda inside and outside of the film - the synthesis of pictures and life, and his ref to Sirk is really to depict what his interpretation of Sirk's movies is. This is where it is a particularly gay film, I think, because gay men have to integrate appearance into their everyday reality. He's also commenting on the way we all have to do that to some extent, and one way we all do it is through the way we watch movies: you don't ever see them in a vacuum, as your comments about Ripley and Hitchcock point out. It's impossible and artificial to try to isolate the film as you try to do. And you can't talk meaningfully about Haynes' film being lesser than Sirk's because Sirk got there first or something: at the end of the day they are still two totally different films and to someone who doesn't know Sirk your assertions are nothing.

As for your role as classroom goof... yes, I always understood you as that type. The reason I like our exchanges is because I am too in a way, although 'annoying the professor' isn't my main motive for challenge because that would just be kinda limited. Besides, having taught in the past, I doubt very much whether your professor is annoyed. I used to live for the day when any student, however blond, would actually challenge me to shake up my thoughts. On the rare occasions it did happen, I experienced real satisfaction.

[chainsmoking insomniac]

Jesus fucking Christ P, you mean I don't have to fucking swear every fucking time I open my fucking mouth?
Cmon pal, saying fuck is therapeutic. You should try it alot lol

[Gold Trumpet]

Budgie,
I am also starting to see this go into our debate of Van Sant, I was thinking of going back and replying to what you last said on the other thread a while back before leaving, but it seems new life in the general discussion we have been having can start here again. In responce to your first comments, I will say I do not believe at all films are untouchable and original works of art. Actually, I am in complete favor with remakes that I hope are not just remakes, but reimaginations. My argument does not concern itself with the films that adapt previous films into their own identity, but take that identity and add things to it that seem of the inessential of making it into an entire film. The idea of remaking Pyscho shot by shot, imitation of the style and story of Sirk films completely in Far From Heaven. My point deals with these films aren't really conveying new images out of old ones, but make their points through a way that can be understood just as perfectly as in a movie as on paper in retrospect to understanding one's work from a previous time and relating it to today's life. I am in belief a lot of what you got out of Hayne's film in the context of within Sirk and reasons why can really still be perfectly understood through proper writing of it.

It may be the school of thought I came from, being that whenever a movie or any work is remade into a new, the best thing for the new work is to share qualities with the old but make it into something that is its own. I admire Haynes for what he was trying to do, but I don't think the complete imitation of another filmmaker was really essential to doing it. Movies have made identity of themselves through showing parts of it in homage to another, like a jazz musician may do in a jam session where he plays with his heart first, instead of working out what exactly he will do. Movies can operate perfectly on that level, because it never reduces itself to being an imitation only of one percise movie or filmmaker that can be understood through a writing just as easily. A film can show many different thoughts and ideas, ones that you pointed out with what Haynes was trying to do as you in relation to the audience. It can be done when a filmmaker takes from different styles and flavors it with their own. I've always had a deeper respect for movies because it had that freedom to freely move from one to another. It is imitation and all in many ways, but it isn't reducing the imitation to only one where it feels more and more like a trick, a trick that can be understood through its one clear imitation.

My main motive for challenging professors wouldn't be just to annoy them if I was a better speaking in relaying my thoughts. What happens to me is I am more realizing of all the stress around me and end up coming up blank in what to say. So I shoot for annoyance, which is easy and good for getting a reaction. Sometimes I challenge due to ideas, but I don't have enough confidence in myself as a public speaker to do so as much as I wish I could. I absolutely love when I challenge because I live for discussion, to either be proven wrong or succeed, but to see how much available thought is out there for me to learn. There are smart people on this board, but I would say you are the only person I can rely on for a discussion of whatever is said. Others, if they do, seem to pick and choose their arguments. My posts are always long because I always feel a right to explain myself, even if no one may agree. That's what I like best about this board and what can be done on it.

~rougerum

[budgie]

GT ~

How do you differentiate between a 'remake' and a 'reimagination'? Where is it 'jazz' and where 'imitation'? Isn't it all a matter of you wanting to see repetition that works within and confirms your existing knowledge, as opposed to being open to a new perspective, of being shown that actually your knowledge isn't the sum total of interpreting a movie?

The real problem here is that you judge a film's value and meaning by comparing it to another film's already established values and meaning, whereas I am interested in meaning being a result of the watching of the film. When you look at it like that, remaking or reimagining takes place every time we see the same film. It also obviously means that no one can take control of meaning or value and say one film is saying this or that, which is why critics and others are so keen to stake their claims on movies. By closely and visibly referencing other films as Haynes and Van Sant have done, they are staking a claim for their own readings of the films - eg. Sirk's movies are gay favourites because they speak to feelings of repression, so Haynes is reappropriating Sirk from the straight film historians who read Sirk as a mainstream auteur, at the same time as he's making connections with other repressed groups (women and blacks). If he hadn't referenced Sirk and publicised the fact for the people who are film buffs and who have seen Sirk as belonging to the straight, white, male canon, then the film couldn't exist. It had to be close. If that's just a 'trick' then I think you are underestimating the political power of movies and Haynes' intentions, perhaps because it 's more convenient to keep Sirk and Haynes in separate boxes?

There are smart people on this board, but I would say you are the only person I can rely on for a discussion of whatever is said. Others, if they do, seem to pick and choose their arguments.

Aww, that's unfair to JB for a start. And just because people don't fill in all the gaps it doesn't mean there isn't a good discussion in there. We all pick and choose. Come on everyone, feel free to argue! Don't be frightened!

[tpfkabi]

dangit.
i keep thinking there is new news on the actual topic.
=(

[Gold Trumpet]

Budgie,
OK, I will agree with you Budgie on the validy in imitation of Sirk for Far From Heaven within the contexts of it representing the history of gays in our society. You just stated the connection in your recent post, but explained yourself better on the previous one. When I read the previous one, I was conflicted but figured I had to post anyways. Now, though, having thought about it more, I will agree with you that remaking of a particular style in this way is appropiate and am humbled to finally understand this. This means I am satisfied with the film as being a very good one, but I do still think there is a better movie to be made out of the subject sometime down the road because I think an imitation of Sirk was the only and best way to looking at the subject, but you did what you had to do in convincing me it is a very good film.

I want to get back to the Pyscho discussion though, because I do still believe I am right in it. I just want your opinion again, with what you know of my arguments, to why it is a good film, so we can continue it. I think the imitation of the work in Pyscho, though, is a much more revelant one for written study or dabbling with the original itself instead of remaking an entire new one due to the distraction that it is of watching new actors remaking an entire film shot by shot, when things could have been done to answer your questions without making the film or bringing ideas up on paper.

And as much as you want to believe that I think I know all I can know, I really don't at all and have said before that I know very little. I think my cockiness just makes me seem that way. Even though that may be snobbish to say and all, it is much more truthful than what a lot of other people here are willing to admit about themselves.

~rougerum